updated 11:45 am EDT, Mon March 23, 2009

Vista at 30pc Market Share

Microsoft's Windows Vista has finally crossed the 30 percent mark in share this week, according to StatCounter data. The milestone came more than two years after the operating system was released and at the expense of Windows XP, which has dipped below 58 percent at the same time. Both Microsoft platforms have had similar growth curves over the first several weeks of 2009 and show that most new adoptees of Vista are those trading up from older Windows PCs.

The data is evidence that Vista is finally gaining "consistent traction" in the US, StatCounter chief Aodhan Cullen said. He nonetheless warns that the very slow progression and day-to-day usage behavior also indicated much stiffer resistance to Vista in business; Vista use has gone up each weekend while XP use has been highest during the week.

However, XP has lost share more quickly than Vista has gained share, and Cullen noted that most of those who didn't move from XP to Vista were most likely to have dropped Windows in favor of Mac OS X. Apple has seen rapid growth in the past two months and grew from just over 6.6 percent share in January to 8.3 percent in mid-March. Linux has remained virtually unchanged over the same period at about 0.6 percent.

Why Apple has enjoyed the sudden if modest success isn't addressed by the researchers, though existing home user resistance to Vista has been widely interpreted as driving Windows users to Macs.

Microsoft's gain is also expected to be short-lived, as Windows 7 may launch as early as September and replace Vista outright in the US market.

It isn't traction if you don't have a choice. The fact that Microsoft doesn't want XP available anymore forces people to buy their new computer with Vista. I would have liked to see the "traction" if XP was still an option.

Most forced to get Vista when purchasing a new PC. The data is faulty, and like jdonahoe says, if XP was still an option, the outcome would be much less.And I also agree with Fresh-Faced Recruit, Ballmer is an IDIOT!!!!

The issue to me, is not about Vista adoption, but about total Windows adoption. Macs are gaining, but it is painfully slow compared to whatever Windows does - up or down. I think where MS may have problems is that anyone finally buying into Vista will want to wait a bit before buying into Windows7. Yet for Apple, it is about doing better than all Windows versions, not just Vista.

Apple obviously has finally gotten Macs to a sustainable level and double digits is pretty much there - 15 % will be a nice critical mass for the developer market. But that graph shows how small Macs still are, at least in the overall market.

And you're forced to get Leopard if you get a new Mac. What's your point? That MS isn't offering their 7 year old OS anymore as an option. Man, this would be like Mac users whining about not getting OS 9 anymore.

The critical question that everyone should be asking is - What on Earth is Apple going to do when they run out of feline codenames?? Is using an almost-extinct animal like Snow Leopard a signal of their future plans?